It is not the only country to have imported defective medical equipment from China to tackle the disease.

Spain announced on Thursday that it would return 640,000 rapid testing kits it had purchased from a Chinese company after tests on a batch already imported had found them to have a 30% detection rate.

The government stressed that the kits were CE certified — indicating conformity with European standards — and that they had been purchased through a Spanish intermediary.

The Chinese embassy in Madrid said on Twitter however that Shenzen Bioeasy Biotechnology, the kits' manufacturer, had not been officially licenced by the country's authorities to sell medical products.

Spain is the second hardest-hit country in the world after Italy having reported more than 73,000 confirmed cases and 5,900 deaths by Saturday.

The Turkish Health Minister also revealed during a press conference on Friday that rapid testing kits samples it had received from a Chinese company did not meet the country's effectiveness standards and that another firm, also Chinese, had instead been selected to provide the kits.